Volunteers reviewing data in missing aircraft case

Three small missing aircraft cases remain unsolved in BC with the last point of contact for two of those planes in the southern interior of the province.

It has been nearly 10 months since a search was suspended for a small plane that vanished on a flight between Cranbrook and the Okanagan last June.

The plane, a single-engine Piper aircraft containing 21-year-old pilot Alex Simons and his partner Sydney Robillard, did not reach its intended destination in Kamloops, which touched off a large-scale search and rescue effort.

Fred Carey, a volunteer with the Civil Air Search and Rescue Association, says his organizaiton has been reviewing the situation and the available data to see if any new leads can be gleaned.

Carey says the missing plane is one of three unresolved searches for small aircraft in B.C.

Twenty-eight-year-old Alberta resident Dominic Neron and his 31-year-old girlfriend Ashley Bourgeault vanished between Penticton and Edmonton last November, and Ron Boychuk, 60, disappeared in October 2007 while flying from Revelstoke to the Nanaimo area.

Rescuers in southern Interior say three ground searches also remain open and Alan Hobler with Kamloops Search and Rescue calls that number “quite upsetting.”

“(In) my seven years with Kamloops Search and Rescue, we have only had one other unresolved search,” he said. “To have three in six months is kind of concerning for us.”

Twenty-year-old Ryan Shtuka was last seen Feb. 17, leaving a house party at the Sun Peaks Resort north of Kamloops.

A car belonging to Thelma Vaughn, 62, was found near Kamloops early last month, but there has been no trace of her, while Prince George woman Jenny Larocque was last seen in Williams Lake in September 2017.

Larocque’s Great Dane-cross dog was found slightly injured but alive on a rural road near Ashcroft on Oct. 15 and her car was located the next day.